help! I need to plan a multi-chapter fic and I don’t know how
step 3. fic magically pours out of your trauma.
Jokes aside, planning a fic can be just as intense as planning out an original novel. You know you want certain things IN the fic, or maybe just a base idea, but what goes in between those pieces is tricky and can be vague and unknown.
Start with an idea. This could be a paragraph you were just playing around with, a headcanon that you really want to work on, a prompt idea. Anything. It does not need to be a coherent story plan to begin with. You don’t need to know the beginning end or middle. Just this idea.
Take the idea and plop it down somewhere you can plan. A notebook, a doc, a tumblr draft. Wherever works. You need a place to put your thoughts.
- put your Original Thought, or paragraph or whatever, down.
-With this Thought, what else do you want to put into the story? How can you bridge from this point? What OTHER Thoughts have you had about fics you’ve read, written, or just thought about that you think you can put into this fic? This Thought doesn’t stand alone despite how much you think it does.
FOR EXAMPLE. This was the Thought I had for a current fic I’m working on for the Avengers and Loki:
-Loki didn’t know he was mind controlled, but Clint does.
That was it. That was the basis. And then I thought about that and was like. Okay. So what else could come off of this fic?
Then I sat down and I put a bunch of bubble ideas around this one. Like “Okay, well what if Loki’s mind control had lasting effects, not for clint, but for Loki?” and, “I read this fic where an Asgardian civil war broke out over Loki being imprisoned and that was super cool. How could I do something like that?” or “what would happen if THOR went missing instead of Loki?” and “I really like Natasha/clint so I’ll put that in here” and “I think that the scepter was vastly underused as a plot device, so what if we throw that in here, too” and “I have a this headcanon about the Chitauri that Thanos rescued Loki from them” and “What if Frigga was even worse than Odin in some ways as a parent?”
It’s like when you write an essay and they make you do the brainstorm of ideas branching off from your topic prompt. That is LITERALLY what you are doing, but it’s for fun.
STEP THREE: Rough outline
The next thing I DO, and this might not work for everyone (of course all of this might not work for everyone and that’s fine), is to outline the fic in a really rough, terrible way.
So it’s more like a “I’ve gathered all my thoughts, great. Now it’s time to try and put them into a narrative.”
Then you kind of jumble it together. Where the Original Thought goes is up to you.
Here’s a bit of the rough outline for the Loki and Clint fic I mentioned earlier.
-5 months after Loki gets rescued, Thor goes missing between NY and visiting Jane
It takes Three Days before they realize what happened.
-The Avengers start looking for Thor upon Jane’s request, and Loki is surprisingly willing to help them.
-They can find no evidence of where Thor went
-One week after Thor goes missing, SHEILD calls them to let them know the chitauri woke up.
-Loki is apprehensive about this.
-Clint is too, though he couldn’t say why
-They go to the SHIELD facility where the Chitauri are, somewhere in New Mexico, and drag Loki with them.
-Fury says that he doesn’t think the two things – Thor going missing and the Chitauri waking up – are related.
-Says that there’s a group that escaped from a different facility and they have pictures of the Chitauri in NY.
-Loki is not happy with the fact that Thor may have been taken by the Chitarui, and it’s fairly obvious to anyone who watches them.
-Loki asks to speak with the Chitauri. Fury says that’s a dumb idea, but Loki’s like, literally, what do I have to go back to?
-Clint realizes that he can understand the convo and is immensely disturbed by this
-The Chitauri taunt Loki openly about Thanos, and neither confirm nor deny that they have Thor
-They threaten Loki pointedly and Clint finds the situation strange
-They leave for the day and try to figure out what to do about Thor. The Chitauri escape and attempt to claim Loki after beating him brutally. The Avengers come after him, and Clint stays to help Bruce clean up Loki.
-Loki poisoned by chitauri and having nightmares
-Clint realizes that he recognizes the scars on Loki’s back from dreams and is like “???”
-Clint’s like “SoME ProBlem!”
-Clint doesn’t tell Loki that he recognizes them, and Loki doesn’t suspect so
-The Avengers go to Jane’s house to look for signs on where Thor went and Clint sorta expects Loki to treat Jane like crap, but he just ignores her.
-They find evidence of magic around the house, and Loki says that the possibility of Thor being taken by the Chitauri is low. The Chitauri don’t have a teleportation device of their own.
-Draws them back to square one.
-Fury suggests the possibility of it being an on-earth person. No small number of people who would like to use Thor for anything. Powersource, norse god, etc.
Anyone who has actually read the fic is aware that the actual story doesn’t go in this direction anymore. But that’s kind of the point. The plan shouldn’t be so rigid that you aren’t willing to evolve it with the actual story.
Personally, this is what works for me for an Actual Plan rather than a distorted rough narrative plan.
- I decide on how many chapters I want in the fic. Usually, about 12 because my chapters are lengthy. Then I set out a long line of numbers.
and I plan out exactly what is supposed to happen in that chapter all the way out to the end, using the rough narrative plan as a basis. Think of these as summaries. You don’t NEED to put down dialog or exactly who is doing what all the time, but you should be able to picture the scene(s) in your head.
There should, ideally, be at least ONE thing you are excited to write in every chapter, or writing the fic will be a burden on your soul.
OUTLINE FOR THE WEEPING SIREN CHAPTER 4
-Thor tells them the next morning to gather their strength because they’re going deeper into the woods to find the girl, says that she can’t be far. THEY LEAVE THE HORSES IN THE VILLAGE. They stay overnight for another three days without successes, only faint moaning and all of them are exhausted.
-Thor says that they should stay there, and he and Prince Tjan are going to go hunting.
-They stay where they are, and set up the tents as Loki attempts to start the fire without much success
-The others teasing him, Loki’s kind of like “I’m done!” and starts to walk off, but then the Weeping Siren attacks.
^^^ this was, side note, the original scene I wrote for this fic.
-All of them panic and scramble to make any sort of defense against the Weeping Siren with very little success.
-Hogan gets dragged off and all of them panic, attempting to search for them, but feel sorcery wash over them, freezing them in place. Sif screams, and Loki is the only one to escape somewhat. Tries for an attack, and the Weeping Siren catches him and Loki pleads with her to spare the WT and Sif’s lives.
-WT and Sif are startled.
-Loki insists that he’s more valuable, he’s the second prince of Asgard, he’ll make a good ransom.
-The Weeping Siren says something like “you are weary, child. You do not think clearly. This is salvation.”
-And then she hits Loki over the head with a rock or something, and Sif and the WT panic. Loki crumples into unconsciousness, and the Weeping Siren gathers him into her arms like a lost pup
-Puts the rest of them to sleep.
The benefits of doing it on a chapter by chapter basis is that you – generally – know what’s going to happen in the fic later and can foreshadow and plan accordingly. It’s not some big mess that you hopelessly untangle yourself from. you’re less likely to have narrative inconsistences. AND. you can watch yourself get closer to the end of the fic which is just a boost of serotonin. Because you know how many chapters there are (ish) so when you get to chapter ten you’re like “Oh! Great! Two more chapters to go!”
(And then it turns out to be three but that’s okay we all enjoy suffering anyway)
if you really don’t want to do a chapter by chapter plan, here’s what I recommend instead:
KNOW THE MIDDLE. THE BEGINNING. AND THE END.
Fill in the bits in-between with “I would like this to happen about here” and kind of work your way from there.
STEP FIVE: WRITE. Adjust plan as needed.
It is extremely unlikely that you will write the entire fic without adjusting your plan once. You may get halfway through the story and realize that it’s not going to work this way, so then you have to restart the plan from that point on. I did that with the Loki and Clint mentioned above a few weeks ago and I feel like it’s much better now than it was originally.
Honestly, most of my fics I start planning AFTER I’ve written the first chapter in it’s entirety, which is why I’ll post a fic and then not update it for like four months much to everyone’s frustration. XD
Hopefully this made sense, and please feel free to add any thoughts on how you plan your fics successfully or any questions you may have. <3
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